Articles
Writing about educational technology, learning design, and the questions that sit underneath both. Articles are organized into three threads: Tools & Power examines the economics and politics of EdTech, Other Lenses draws on speculative fiction, natural systems, and contemplative practice to think differently about design, and Design Practice covers the day-to-day work of building learning experiences that hold up in real conditions.
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“Flow” in Course Design: Organic, Alternative Approaches
For most of my career I have designed courses the way I build Canvas templates, which is out of parts. My atomic design system breaks a course into atoms (colors, fonts, buttons),…
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Known as the Canvas Guy
This article responds to EndVertex’s video “For-Profit (Creative) Software,” embedded above. Somewhere along the way I became the Canvas person. Colleagues introduce me that way, districts call me for that reason, and…
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Let “EdTech” Training Die
The shift in educational technology culture became clear to me through our annual edtech conference here in South Dakota. To my eye, attendance has thinned over the past few years, and the…
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Second Thoughts on AI-Assisted Game Design in K12
A note added September 2026: I wrote this piece in February 2025 after running a workshop for teachers on having students design educational games with AI tools. I have rewritten it as…
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Modular Content in Instructional Design
This article has moved into Homegrown Learning, where the Go metaphor from This Is How You Lose the Time War now opens the book’s page on thinking in modules, in the Design…
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The Machinery of Modern Education
Most of us who work in education got into it because we believed it could change something. I certainly did. Standing in front of my high school English classes, I thought the…
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Biomimicry as a Lens: Coyotes, Pine Cones, and Prairie Grass
This series began as four separate posts and was adapted into a presentation at ISTELive25, embedded below. In September 2026 I consolidated the four pieces into this one essay, keeping what held…
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How Science Fiction Can Improve EdTech & Design
I’m an unabashed science fiction nerd. My bookshelf is an embarrassment of riches: dog-eared copies of Le Guin’s Always Coming Home, Butler’s entire Xenogenesis series, and all three volumes of Kim Stanley…
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Le Guin’s Carrier Bag Theory in Learning Design
As a learning experience designer and a longtime reader of Ursula K. Le Guin, I keep finding my way back to her essay “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction.” Le Guin is…
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Better Notifications in Online Learning and Ed Tech
Most teachers I work with are not asking for a better notification system. They are asking for fewer interruptions, and most have given up on getting them. The LMS pings, the email…
